Here's a slightly updated version of Starfall. Yes, I know It's been forever and a day without any NEW chapters, but... never mind. Just READ!

Chapter 01
Starfall

"Uri, wake up!"

"Wha—? What time is it?" Urien said sleepily. He lazily rubbed his eyes and slowly sat up in his bed. Suddenly, his eyes snapped open and he fervently looked around his room. "Where is it?! Aeronwen, look out! The shadows!" he said rapidly.

His sister looked at him with a confused, but slightly worried, look on her face. "What are you talking about? Are you still dreaming?"

"No, it wasn't a dream… at least I don't think it was…." He paused for a moment and took a deep breath. "Anyway, what time is it? It doesn't even look like the sun is up yet," he said tiredly.

"Well, uh, it's 4:30…, but, don't get mad at me, I'm just the messenger. The professor called; he wants to see us…now. He sounded very excited," she said.

Urien turned and put his bare feet on the cold ground. He shivered as he pushed his covers off. He was wearing green, striped pajama shorts and a matching short-sleeve, button-down. It was unbuttoned revealing several fresh, pink scars across his chest. He stopped and furiously rubbed his temples.

Aeronwen sat down next to him and held his arm. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. It's just a headache, Aeron. That can happen sometimes when you're woken up at 4:30 in the morning."

"Uri, I'm sorry. Besides I already told you it's not my fault." Aeronwen looked at his chest with her bright green eyes. She looked almost exactly like him. The most notable differences were her obvious feminine qualities and her noticeably darker hair. She was wearing shiny, blue short shorts and a pastel blue button-down with white polka dots. "Urien. What were you doing last night? Where did those scratches come from?"

Urien self-consciously covered up his chest. "Nothing. Since when were you so concerned about my health?"

"Hey, what kind of big sister would I be if I didn't care for you?"

"Aeron, you're only 10 minutes older than me. That doesn't make you my big sister."

"It doesn't matter if it's 10 minutes or 10 years, I'm still older than you and, that makes me your big sister! Now are you going to tell me how you got those scratches, not? Look, you have bruises on your arms and legs too." She saw a rather large bruise on his upper arm so lifted up his sleeve. Urien tried to cover up his arm, but it was too late. "You were drinking last night, weren't you!?" she screeched.

He tried to cover her mouth, but she slapped his hand away. "Ssh! Mom and Dad might hear you," he said in a harsh whisper. "And, no, I was not drinking! I don't drink, you know that!"

"Well, if you weren't drunk then you've gone crazy. There's no other reason I can think of for you to get a tattoo!" she hissed. The skin around the tattoo was still red and raw. The tattoo itself was of a winged snake eating its own tail circling his arm.

Urien took her hands in his and said, "Promise me you won't tell mom and dad. If you do, they'll make me leave the band." He looked very worried.

"You know I would never do that."

"Promise me."

"Okay, I promise… Anyway, we need to hurry up and get dressed. The professor is waiting."

"Okay, I'll meet you in the kitchen."

-- XX--XX —

Urien pulled his jacket on when he reached the bottom of the stairs. He turned into the kitchen and to his surprise, Aeronwen was already sitting there waiting for him. "Wow, that was really fast," he said in a disappointed tone. "…shut up," he added after seeing the threat of a dirty joke on her face.

Aeronwen stifled a laugh and then looked at him severely. "Took you long enough."

"Well—"

"So, how are we getting to The Tower?" she shivered when she said the last word. "Which car should we take?"

Urien thought about for a second and then said, "Since it's just the two of us, we can take our car…and I'm driving," he added hastily.

"You drove last time!"

"Then you should've called it," he said in a matter-of-factly tone. "We better leave them a message so they don't get worried." Urien grabbed a notepad and hastily scrawled a message on it. The message read:

'Gone to see the professor. Took our car! Be back in time for breakfast.

P.S. Don't blame me, it's all Aeron's fault.'

He placed the message on the refrigerator door, not letting Aeronwen read it, and then grabbed the keys from the hook by the back door. They walked out into the driveway and got into the white Volkswagen Rabbit. As they drove toward the Old District, Urien talked animatedly about his drama rehearsal the day before.

He continued with his little stories until he noticed that his sister was distracted. "What is it? What's wrong?" he asked slowly.

"The dream you had last night," she started slowly, "what happened in it?"

He thought for a second. "I was on these weird stained-glass platforms. I had to choose a weapon and give up another one. Then I had to fight these weird little shadow-frog-looking things. At the end, I had to fight a giant shadow monster and I got sucked into darkness…. That's when you woke me up."

"I-interesting…"

"What's so interesting about it? It's just a dumb dream," Urien said as a he stopped at a red light.

"Nothing… It-it's nothing," she said as she gazed out the window.

"Okay, what aren't you telling me?"

"I told you, it's nothing." Aeronwen said dismissively.

"Fine…Fine, don't tell me," Urien said sullenly. They rode the rest of the way in silence.

-- XX--XX —

They parked on the street and walked into the courtyard of the Tower of Aquila. The southern horizon had begun to lighten. There were a few old people in the benches. Urien and Aeronwen walked up to the tower and entered their destination on the pad. They chose to go to the observatory level near the top and when they pressed enter, the wall opened up revealing an elevator.

When they reached the observatory floor, they were flooded with extremely bright lights. A man in a long, white lab coat scurried over the west wall and turned off the work lights. He had slick black hair and round glasses. His face was slightly lined with age, but he moved nimbly. He was usually a calm reserved man, but this day he seemed…unstable. "What are you two doing here? You're not welcome here. Be gone, at once. Oh, that's right; I invited you! Well, what are you waiting for? Take a seat."

"Professor, are you okay?" Aeronwen asked him. Urien and she walked slowly over to the stools near the telescope.

"Yeah, you're acting kinda psycho—"

Aeronwen slapped his arm. "Don't say that! That's so rude."

"Oww! Well, it's true," he said, nursing his arm.

"That doesn't mean you should say it…"

"And, that doesn't mean you should slap me. You know I'm damaged…"

"And, you still haven't told me why."

"Well, when I figure it out you'll be the first to know—"

"You two must come over here to the north window. If you don't, you might miss it. Then, there will have been no reason for you to come here so early." The twins looked up from their squabbling at to see the professor already looking out of that window. They walked over and stood on either side of him.

"So, what did you want to show us, Professor?" Aeronwen asked.

"Look at the north star. Now, do you see those two stars that form a line with it? They lead to another bright star. That star is the brightest in a well-known constellation. Do you notice anything strange about it?"

The twins looked at the stars that he directed him towards. It took them a second, but when they noticed what the professor was hinting at, they were shocked. "The Big Dipper!! Half the stars are missing!" Urien yelled.

"That's right. Now take a look over to the western-most star in the Dipper."

They looked for a second; the star flashed and then blinked out. "WHAT!? That star just disappeared!" Aeronwen screamed.

"Correct again. Now, I don't believe you knew about this, but the same thing was happening two years ago. It started exactly three years to the day—as far as I can tell from my research—after that strange meteor shower we had."

"Oh yeah, I remember that. The government confiscated all the meteorites, right?" Aeronwen said.

"Very close, but I must make a slight correction. They confiscated –almost-all the meteorites. I was able smuggle a few into my office for research. Anyway, speaking of meteor showers, there should be a small one in about five seconds right about there." He pointed towards the Big Dipper. Right on cue, meteors fell across the sky from the area of the Big Dipper.

"So, I guess what you're trying to say is that the disappearing stars and the meteor showers are connected," Urien said calmly.

"I knew I was right to call you two. Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying. I've been researching the stars ever since they began disappearing and, I've made a startling discovery. The stars are other worlds just like our own."

"WHAT?!?!" both twins screamed.

"You mean to tell me that those are all different worlds with living breathing people…and they've been going out!!" Aeronwen yelled.

"That's correct. I've discovered that the meteor showers are the barriers of the planets falling…and the worlds go out when they've been overtaken by the Darkness. The big meteor shower we had five years ago was the barrier of our world falling." They all fell silent for a short while. The sun became visible just over the horizon as they stood there.

Aeronwen slowly started, "If the barrier falling makes the world vulnerable to the…the Darkness, then why haven't we been taken by it."

"That's a question I've been asking myself for the past year. I think I've finally figured it out. In fact, that's why I asked you two here," the professor said with a wild gleam in his eye. "Look out of the East Window. What do you see?"

The twins ran over to the eastern window and looked up. "I see a big, red star. Actually, that thing's pretty huge. Wait, is it getting bigger?" Urien said.

"Go look through the telescope. It's already aimed for that exact spot." The twins followed his direction. When they looked through the dual scopes, they were frozen in fear. "See, I came to understand that ours is one of the biggest worlds in existence. It would take a considerable force for the darkness to take it and, even then, we would get time to mount a defense.

"What a fool I've been. Last night it finally came to me. The only way for the darkness to overcome us is to either completely overtake us with all its force at once, or… to make this world smaller. That's when I found the body that you're viewing right now. They called it METEOR…"

I haven't decided whether to make the Prof. an OC or not. Anyway, read&review people!